


like seven inches from the midday sun

by decadencethief



Category: Homestuck, Vast Error (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Romance, gender euphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadencethief/pseuds/decadencethief
Summary: Some of the events leading up to Dismas and Murrit committing to each other.
Relationships: Dismas Mersiv/Murrit Turkin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	like seven inches from the midday sun

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for [Gizelle](https://twitter.com/gizellefromhell), and it was a delight to write! Thank you so much, it was a pleasure working with you!

Dismas’s hands would not stop itching.

Blood coated his fingers. It had streaked across his forearms and worked its way under his gloves. He could feel it drying on his skin, from thick, viscous liquid to traces of iron and salt that were indistinguishable from old mud.

Though in the end, he supposed they had never been that different.

His feet dangled off the edge of the cliff he was sat on. Below, it plunged into a canyon he couldn’t see the bottom of. Pitch, unforgiving darkness, the same as the sky overhead. He could picture himself as the last living being in existence, enveloped from all sides by the still, immutable night.

That was where this planet was hurtling towards, and nobody could blame him that he wasn’t doing his fucking piece. 

The sound of footsteps tore him from his thoughts. They were slow and deliberate, announcing themselves long before the person making them got anywhere near him. They stopped somewhere behind Dismas’s back, to his left. He kept staring ahead.

“If it ain’t my favourite little assassin man,” Murrit’s voice said.

“Turkin.” Dismas didn’t roll his eyes, but he made sure his tone conveyed the gesture.

“'Ey, chill, you don't wanna dislocate somethin’ with all that excitement. I’ll hafta pop the joint back in and that shit’s not gonna be pleasant for either of us.”

This time, he couldn’t resist the eye roll. He had learnt how to dislocate and reattach his shoulders sweeps ago. “What are you doing here?”

“Been husslin’, attendin’ to some  _ very  _ important matters, as per usual. Guy like me oughta make sure gears and palms are all proper an' greased, ya know.”

Dismas chose not to point out that there weren’t many palms around that needed greasing. He sighed, letting the words hang in the air.

The next time Murrit spoke, his voice came from a bit closer. It had lost some of the sharp, mocking edge Dismas was used to, and he felt himself tense for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. “What’s gotten into you, dagger boy? You’re seemin’ even glummer than normal.”

“Yeah, am I?” he scoffed, jabbing his heel into the rock underneath him. His hands hadn’t stopped itching.

“Let’s hear it. Take the floor, pour your bloodpusher out, et cetera, et cetera.” Murrit moved to his side, entering his field of vision for the first time. 

Dismas didn’t turn to look at him, even as he shuffled to make room on his stony perch. Murrit plopped down beside him with little ceremony. Not too close, Dismas noted, but close enough for him to feel like they were sitting together.

Silence filled the air between them. A thin line of light bloomed on the horizon, then stretched upward.

Eventually, Dismas spoke. “I fucked up this time.”

Murrit didn’t even stir, and his voice was neutral. “I’m listenin’.”

“Everything was going well at first, until I moved to attack him,” Dismas stared straight ahead, unblinking. “He must have seen me where I was hiding. He tried to defend himself, but he was still unarmed. And I wasn’t.” He closed his eyes. He could still see the arcs of blood against his eyelids. It had taken seven hits until his target had gone down. “It took him over a minute to die. There was... blood—”

His voice threatened to break; he clamped his mouth shut before Murrit could hear it. 

A low hum came from beside him. “Sounds to me like you got the job done.”

“Of course I got the job done! What the fuck else was I supposed to do?” The list of lives he had taken had been growing steadily since he’d made the mistake of losing a poker game, and he realised with a pang of shock that he’d lost track of the number.

The blood on his arms and shirt was black under the greyish glow of dawn. Only hours ago, it had belonged to a living creature. Now all it did was absorb the dim light.

He wanted to scrub it all off.

Murrit had scooted a bit closer to him. “Look here. Way I see it is this: That guy was gonna kick it sooner or later. Shoulda seen it comin' from 'least a nautical mile away when he made his career choice, and if not, no skin off my back. Or yours, for that matter." Dismas stole a glance in his direction, but he was staring straight ahead, expression unreadable. "You were followin’ my orders. This all's on me.”

“It was still a failure! That wasn’t an assassination, it was a slow and clumsy butcher's job and I cannot afford to make such stupid mistakes or—”

Murrit bumped his shoulder against his. “Easy, easy! Chin up, champ. You did what you were s'posed to and got outta dodge in one piece. Coverin’ this whole matter up’s gonna cost a lil’ extra, but I’ll only be taking part of your paycheck for it. You stay winnin’.”

Dismas couldn’t bite back a scoff, although something inside him had settled. “Fuck off, Turkin.”

Murrit flashed him a grin, all glinting eyes and sharp edges. “Yeah, you wish.” He pulled out a handkerchief and reached for his hand. “C'mon. Let’s get that blood off you, you messy sonuvabitch.”

Murrit stared at his reflection in the window.

He tilted his head, turned sideways, smoothed out the fabric on his hips. Hummed under his breath. Tried to decipher what the sight made him feel.

There was a part of him, the one connected to his deep-rooted paranoia, that screamed that this was  _ stupid, _ and a  _ mistake, _ and that he should go and change before Dismas got there. That much he had expected. What he hadn’t expected was how  _ small _ that part was. 

Most of him was  _ elated. _

The straps of the dress were thick and wrapped around the shoulders. Its top part was tailored to fit him as well as any of his button-up shirts. A thin leather belt cinched it at the waist, and below it, it flared out in a heavy-falling skirt that reached just above his knees. Not one to half-ass anything, he had settled on a vibrant pink, with big purple flowers decorating the skirt. 

It looked… different than his usual. It made his brain feel funny. He smiled, then started laughing, a tension he’d learnt to ignore bubbling out of him along with the sound. He could get used to this. He— 

The door to his office opened, putting an instant, screeching halt to his thoughts. He purged his expression from all emotion, and spun on his heel.

He couldn’t help the rush of delight at how his skirt twirled around him.

Dismas stood at the door, one foot inside the room, and stared at him in mute surprise.

Murrit felt himself rest a hand on his hip. “What gives, Mr. Hitman? Never seen a bare shoulder before?”

Dismas’s face flushed. He cleared his throat, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

For a long, quiet moment, the two of them looked at each other across the room. Murrit wished he could make sense of Dismas’s expression, but his uncertainty only made him push his chest out and clench his jaw defiantly.

The corner of Dismas’s mouth twitched up. He walked up to the desk and sat on the chair in front of it. His fingers drummed a hectic beat against his thigh. He was weighing his words, Murrit knew. He had that thoughtful expression on with a deep crease between his eyebrows, but the smile he was biting back? There was a piece Murrit was missing.

“Do you want to talk to me about something?”

A very measured question, asked in a careful, quiet tone. It could have easily come across as combative — Dismas was blunt to a fault — but instead, it was… dare he say considerate? Murrit pulled out his own chair, feeling jittery. A bit off-kilter.

He adjusted his dress as he sat down, crossing one leg over the other in a smooth motion. Confident. Yeah, fake it 'till you make it.

This was far from the first time he’d wanted to try this. It had lurked beneath the surface of his mind for as long as he remembered, a constant itch he hadn’t dared to examine. Until now, that is. He wasn’t sure what all this meant just yet, or where he was to go from here. Thinking about it threatened to overwhelm him.

He bunched up the fabric on his thighs, hidden from view. It was soft and comforting to the touch, and his anxiety ebbed. This was enough for now.

He met Dismas’s eyes. “Nah.” It took a deliberate effort to get the word out. “But I‘mma let you know if I need a confidant.”

“Alright.” Dismas nodded, then cleared his throat. His cheeks were still dusted with bronze. “It’s... a nice dress.”

Murrit’s bloodpusher fluttered inside his chest.

The air was heavy with a humid heat and the promise of rain, and Dismas was struggling to breathe. He felt sticky; his clothes clung to his body like wet foliage.

Beside him, Murrit looked completely unfazed by the weather. His shoulders were relaxed, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Neon lights from the surrounding buildings painted his face in shades of violet. The top couple of buttons on his shirt were undone. His eyes darted across the screen of his tablet, reading something Dismas couldn’t see.

For how intent he had been on joining Dismas on this stakeout, Murrit sure wasn't paying any attention to the door they were monitoring.

“See somethin’ you like?” Murrit glanced up at him and his mouth curled into a smirk when he caught him staring.

Dismas hated the way that smirk had been making him feel recently. The blood climbing up to his face and neck, the way his stomach twisted and he was suddenly all too aware of his limbs and not sure where to put them.

When had he started to think that his boss was as attractive as he was infuriating?

“I thought you wanted to come so you could  _ help  _ with this.”

Murrit arched an eyebrow. Dismas expected him to start arguing, but then he just shrugged and put away his tablet. “Guess I did.”

They lapsed into silence again, both of them looking ahead. The doorway they were hiding in was so narrow that their sides pressed firmly against each other, shoulder to knee. Dismas hadn’t even realised when that had happened.

He wasn’t typically one for physical touch. With the warmth of Murrit’s body against his side, he found himself enjoying it.

“If you just wanna sit on my lap, we can come to an arrangement, yanno.”

“What?!” He jolted to attention. 

“You’re basically sittin’ on top of me.”

Dismas crossed his arms, though he didn’t motion to move away. “You’re out of your mind.” 

Murrit’s laughter shook his shoulder. “You’re kinda cute when you get all up in arms, Mersiv.”

“And you talk a big game for a coward, Turkin.”

“Do I gotta remind you that I’m—”

Dismas leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Unbearable?” he finished Murrit’s sentence for him. “Trust me, I don’t need the reminder.” For once in his life, he had the pleasure of seeing Murrit completely speechless.

He could get used to this kind of silence, and to the way he was blinking at him, eyelashes brushing the tops of his cheeks. Their faces were so close together that he could feel his breath on his lips.

Murrit closed the distance.

It was a clumsy, uncertain kiss, noses bumping into each other and teeth grazing lips, but when they broke apart, both of them were gasping for air. Murrit’s hand was on the back of his neck, fingers tangled in his hair like he had no intention of letting him go.

“You’re still a bastard,” Dismas murmured, trying not to smile and failing.

“A bastard you ain’t gonna be gettin’ rid of.”

As he was leaning in for another kiss, Dismas realised he was fine with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Find me on Twitter [@decadencethief](https://twitter.com/decadencethief). 
> 
> Title is from Smooth by Santana featuring Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty fame.


End file.
